ABOUT THIS ITEM

You don’t hear a record like "W" very often, that’s for sure, just as you seldom encounter an artist like Planningtorock. When you play "W" and let its melodrama and uncommon beauty grip you, suddenly all those cliches make sense: this album stops you in your tracks, blows your mind and makes you feel alive. It’s a remarkable piece of work.

So how does it sound? Well, it’s melancholy and euphoric, epic in scale yet deeply personal, strikingly alien but weirdly familiar, and always daring and original. If we had to settle for one word: audacious. There’s plenty of saxophone and strings a go-go, but not the cloying kind that lure you into an ‘emotional’ state. From the pulse and jabbing pizzicatos on "Doorway", Planningtorock unveils the unsettling yet heady allure of "W".

W is littered with passionate gems like "The Breaks", the baroque boogie of "Living It Out", its grunting and growling straight out of Yoko Ono’s “Walking On Thin Ice”, the sharpened percussive scythe of "Jam", the swirling otherness and grace of ‘Black Thumber’ and a provocative take of Arthur Russell’s “Janine”. Planningtorock stretches sounds and curdles her voice, a queasy rococo rush that has an intoxicating quality. She also loves to toy with convention and the tongue in her cheek is often visible; on the 'suckular love of "Manifesto" and her use of wailing within the maelstrom of "I'm Yr Man".

01. Doorway
02. The One
03. Going Wrong
04. Manifesto
05. I'm Yr Man
06. The Breaks
07. Living It Out
08. Milky Blau
09. Jam
10. Black Thumber
11. Janine
12. 9